The narrator of DeMille's "Up Country" is a man newly retired from the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) of the military, living in Falls Church, VA and figuring out what to do next. Part of me was thrilled by all the references to things in my life – I just went to Falls Church, VA, a few weeks ago with A.B., who works in the military justice office of the army (not to be confused with CID, apparently). And when the main character met his ex-boss at the Vietnam Memorial on the national mall, I thought “I was just there a few weeks ago!”
Early in the story, he embarks on a mission in Vietnam, where he’s supposed to solve a decades-old crime with the help of a woman he meets over there (who turns out to be CIA, go figure). The man is a Vietnam veteran, so the book is littered with sudden flashbacks and remembrances of battles and conflicts that he’s experienced. And his female guide has lived there for 3 or 4 years, so as they track down the man they’re looking for, she is constantly teaching him about Vietnam people, government, customs, rules, geography, and language(s).
It’s an adventure story. It’s quite long, and filled with colorful characters, dangerous situations, funny moments, and all sorts of conflicts that the characters need to wriggle out of. All of this, drenched in Vietnamese culture, makes for a really good book that provides the added bonus of teaching the reader about a corner of the world that Americans generally know nothing about.
All that being said, I couldn’t but help but be irritated by the sheer amount of details about battles of the Vietnam War (or as they call it over there, the American War), differences between South and North Vietnamese, ways to cheat the system and avoid persecution as an American, and cultural traditions of the indigenous people of the hills. Those kinds of details were necessary for the story, and yet I got the feeling that the author was just bursting with knowledge and needed to spill it all out, like how students who cram all night before a test scribble facts in the margins before they forget it. It read like an adventure/ mystery story combined with a lecture in school, a sneaky way to feed us as many details as possible about another culture, as if the author didn’t want any of his research to go to waste and was therefore determined to weave every little detail into his story.
So, the upshot is that I did enjoy the book, but that I was also annoyed by the teaching tone. For the sake of an adventure, I was able to forgive the irritating predictability of the love story that developed almost immediately between the narrator and his secret CIA guide as they navigated the country. I also forgave the shallowness of the main character, since this seems to be the latest adventure of a long-running character, and character development is a goal of solitary novels, not adventure series. I read the book based on someone else’s recommendation, so it strayed a bit from the depth that I think I’m getting used to, but like I said: all said and done, it was a good read.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
And it begins
Would I be a complete nerd if I decided to blog about books? I've been reading a lot, and I find myself telling people about the books I read in emails. Maybe it would be better to do that here so that I don't completely irritate the people that I correspond with. The idea of writing about someone else's writing seems strange, but it's not plot summaries that I'm interested in, but rather my reactions to the stories. Obviously my reactions are original, so maybe the idea isn't that strange after all.
As I've said, after a long hiatus, I am finally back on a book rampage, eagerly snapping up books at the library and ripping through them. I love being glued to a story, love passing time with characters and getting to know them as well as the authors do. I respect the way that authors can weave such intricacies. The ability has always confounded me. I mean, I write well enough. Ask me to write a chapter about something, and I could do it. I'm good at grammar and sentence structure, though my expertise is in academic writing, not the kind of writing that people actually enjoy reading. But having the imagination and foresight and intelligence to have all the details that are in a novel all worked out in my head, to understand the start and end of a story and how I want to get from here and there, I just don't know how they do it. It's something I've always wanted to do. I've made two attempts. The first was in 4th grade, and was more of an experiment than anything else. The story was about three girls who found a kitten that had been poisoned, and embarked on a quest to figure out who did it, and why (don't worry, the kitten recovered). The second one was in 9th grade, and the main character was a thinly disguised, though also much better, version of me, which makes for a horribly unimaginative and embarrassingly stupid story. I wrote a number of chapters secretively in a spiral notebook that I kept hidden from everyone as if it was a diary, but eventually put it aside. I will make a legitimate attempt to create a memorable work of fiction at some point in my life. In the meantime, I will continue to READ READ READ! My nights and weekends are no longer devoted to school or thesis work, and so I can actually read for fun without guilt. I'm finally allowed to indulge, and though it baffles my boyfriend that I would much rather read a book than watch TV, I think he really respects (and is amused by) how excited I get when I come home from the library with new, unread books. Actually, it reminds me of the days when I used to go to the library with my mom and come home with armloads of Babysitter's Club or Nancy Drew Casefiles or whatever books I was into. In 9th grade, my English teacher prohibited me - yes, PROHIBITED me - from reading any more of Sue Grafton's alphabet series. You know, "A is for Alibi," "B is for Burglar," etc... I'd recently discovered the mystery series, and couldn't stop myself from reading 2-3 of them every week, despite my courseload. My teacher told me they were too easy and told me I wasn't allowed to read them anymore. So I read them in addition to other books, only I stopped recording the Grafton series on my "Books read" list. Ridiculous. All the other kids got pats on the back if they finished a "young adult" book over the course of an entire month, while I was expected to stick to things that I couldn't finish in a week. It infuriated me. My point is, I've always been a reader.
I recently read "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri. It was actually an accident that I ended up with it; someone had recommended another book by the same author, but "The Namesake" was all my library had by her at the moment. I've read several books involving Middle-Eastern culture, like The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, so I was a little hesitant about it at first (not because they weren't great books, because they were, but I didn't want to be in a rut), but it was really good. It followed the life of a young boy whose parents moved to New England from India, and a lot of the issues that he dealt with were actually very familiar to me, whether from my own experiences of teenage awkwardness or needing to get away from home, or because of my experiences with F.H., a friend from my hometown whose parents were Sri Lankan. Like F.H., the boys parents insisted on yearly pilgrammages to the homeland, and had big elaborate dinner parties, and were really traditional, and didn't celebrate Christmas, etc. It really made me think about her. She moved away in 10th grade (her parents decided to return to Sri Lanka), and it took me a long, long time to get over it. I still miss her though. But I digress.
I also recently read a book called "Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver. Again, I had intended to get a different book by the author because of a recommendation -- "the Poisonwood Bible" -- and only ended up with this one because my library didn't have what I wanted. And I was reluctant about the book at first because its description seemed cheesy and lame, but I couldn't resist plucking it off the shelves and giving it a good shot. Halfway through the book, I was really drawn in. As it's told, the book is three separate stories about three separate people, and I was completely absorbed by the characterization, as well as figuring out how and when all three lives would intersect.
I've recently made a friend at my new job, and she also loves to read, but by her own admission, she loves the trashy chick lit that you don't have to think about. She also loves the Twilight series, which I've heard is about vampires. She was telling me about it the other day, and offered to bring the first book in for me, and I really only agreed to be polite. Thinking about it further, though, I am willing to give at least the first installment a shot. She's not the only person who's recommended the series to me. A close friend from grad school, one who is obsessed with classic British authors like Jane Austen, recently read them to placate someone who insisted she give them a try, and she ended up purchasing the entire series and reading them all within a matter of days. So maybe I will give them a try. And anyway, I can't tell you how many vampire stories I devoured from the young adult section of the public library in my hometown. You think I'm a reader now? Imagine a geeky, shy, self-conscious, and awkward version of myself bringing home armloads of paperbacks every week. If Babysitters Club and Nancy Drew were my childhood, vampire stories and ghost stories were my adolescence.
Yesterday at work, I finished up a book that the librarian at my former university recommended to me: "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss. It was a wonderful book and I can see why she loved it. It was one of those books where there are a million separate storylines and you think "How in the world are these related?" But somehow the author tied them all together and now I understand why everyone says it's a great story. Still, there's the nagging feeling that I read it too quickly and skipped over some details. That is, I understand how the stories came together in the end, but it's a little fuzzy and I suspect that I might understand it better if I read it again. So when I dropped off a few other books at the library on my way home from work yesterday afternoon, I kept "The History of Love" with me, with the thought that I might read it again. But I have two other new books calling my name, and I can't resist that any more than I can resist starting a new sudoku puzzle, so they will certainly come first. Maybe I'll come back to this novel, or maybe I'll end up rushing back to the library to get more. We shall see.
Next up: The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. It's been recommended by the aforementioned librarian, as well as some of my more well-read college friends, and it's by the same author as Prodigal Summer, so I'm expecting good things.
As I've said, after a long hiatus, I am finally back on a book rampage, eagerly snapping up books at the library and ripping through them. I love being glued to a story, love passing time with characters and getting to know them as well as the authors do. I respect the way that authors can weave such intricacies. The ability has always confounded me. I mean, I write well enough. Ask me to write a chapter about something, and I could do it. I'm good at grammar and sentence structure, though my expertise is in academic writing, not the kind of writing that people actually enjoy reading. But having the imagination and foresight and intelligence to have all the details that are in a novel all worked out in my head, to understand the start and end of a story and how I want to get from here and there, I just don't know how they do it. It's something I've always wanted to do. I've made two attempts. The first was in 4th grade, and was more of an experiment than anything else. The story was about three girls who found a kitten that had been poisoned, and embarked on a quest to figure out who did it, and why (don't worry, the kitten recovered). The second one was in 9th grade, and the main character was a thinly disguised, though also much better, version of me, which makes for a horribly unimaginative and embarrassingly stupid story. I wrote a number of chapters secretively in a spiral notebook that I kept hidden from everyone as if it was a diary, but eventually put it aside. I will make a legitimate attempt to create a memorable work of fiction at some point in my life. In the meantime, I will continue to READ READ READ! My nights and weekends are no longer devoted to school or thesis work, and so I can actually read for fun without guilt. I'm finally allowed to indulge, and though it baffles my boyfriend that I would much rather read a book than watch TV, I think he really respects (and is amused by) how excited I get when I come home from the library with new, unread books. Actually, it reminds me of the days when I used to go to the library with my mom and come home with armloads of Babysitter's Club or Nancy Drew Casefiles or whatever books I was into. In 9th grade, my English teacher prohibited me - yes, PROHIBITED me - from reading any more of Sue Grafton's alphabet series. You know, "A is for Alibi," "B is for Burglar," etc... I'd recently discovered the mystery series, and couldn't stop myself from reading 2-3 of them every week, despite my courseload. My teacher told me they were too easy and told me I wasn't allowed to read them anymore. So I read them in addition to other books, only I stopped recording the Grafton series on my "Books read" list. Ridiculous. All the other kids got pats on the back if they finished a "young adult" book over the course of an entire month, while I was expected to stick to things that I couldn't finish in a week. It infuriated me. My point is, I've always been a reader.
I recently read "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri. It was actually an accident that I ended up with it; someone had recommended another book by the same author, but "The Namesake" was all my library had by her at the moment. I've read several books involving Middle-Eastern culture, like The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, so I was a little hesitant about it at first (not because they weren't great books, because they were, but I didn't want to be in a rut), but it was really good. It followed the life of a young boy whose parents moved to New England from India, and a lot of the issues that he dealt with were actually very familiar to me, whether from my own experiences of teenage awkwardness or needing to get away from home, or because of my experiences with F.H., a friend from my hometown whose parents were Sri Lankan. Like F.H., the boys parents insisted on yearly pilgrammages to the homeland, and had big elaborate dinner parties, and were really traditional, and didn't celebrate Christmas, etc. It really made me think about her. She moved away in 10th grade (her parents decided to return to Sri Lanka), and it took me a long, long time to get over it. I still miss her though. But I digress.
I also recently read a book called "Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver. Again, I had intended to get a different book by the author because of a recommendation -- "the Poisonwood Bible" -- and only ended up with this one because my library didn't have what I wanted. And I was reluctant about the book at first because its description seemed cheesy and lame, but I couldn't resist plucking it off the shelves and giving it a good shot. Halfway through the book, I was really drawn in. As it's told, the book is three separate stories about three separate people, and I was completely absorbed by the characterization, as well as figuring out how and when all three lives would intersect.
I've recently made a friend at my new job, and she also loves to read, but by her own admission, she loves the trashy chick lit that you don't have to think about. She also loves the Twilight series, which I've heard is about vampires. She was telling me about it the other day, and offered to bring the first book in for me, and I really only agreed to be polite. Thinking about it further, though, I am willing to give at least the first installment a shot. She's not the only person who's recommended the series to me. A close friend from grad school, one who is obsessed with classic British authors like Jane Austen, recently read them to placate someone who insisted she give them a try, and she ended up purchasing the entire series and reading them all within a matter of days. So maybe I will give them a try. And anyway, I can't tell you how many vampire stories I devoured from the young adult section of the public library in my hometown. You think I'm a reader now? Imagine a geeky, shy, self-conscious, and awkward version of myself bringing home armloads of paperbacks every week. If Babysitters Club and Nancy Drew were my childhood, vampire stories and ghost stories were my adolescence.
Yesterday at work, I finished up a book that the librarian at my former university recommended to me: "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss. It was a wonderful book and I can see why she loved it. It was one of those books where there are a million separate storylines and you think "How in the world are these related?" But somehow the author tied them all together and now I understand why everyone says it's a great story. Still, there's the nagging feeling that I read it too quickly and skipped over some details. That is, I understand how the stories came together in the end, but it's a little fuzzy and I suspect that I might understand it better if I read it again. So when I dropped off a few other books at the library on my way home from work yesterday afternoon, I kept "The History of Love" with me, with the thought that I might read it again. But I have two other new books calling my name, and I can't resist that any more than I can resist starting a new sudoku puzzle, so they will certainly come first. Maybe I'll come back to this novel, or maybe I'll end up rushing back to the library to get more. We shall see.
Next up: The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. It's been recommended by the aforementioned librarian, as well as some of my more well-read college friends, and it's by the same author as Prodigal Summer, so I'm expecting good things.
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